


in a manner of speaking i'm dead

by hamartias



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: But until then, Canon Compliant, Depression, Hopeful Ending, I mean it's gonna be jossed at some point, M/M, Mild Suicidal Ideation, Not Really Character Death, Nothing explicit, Pining, Post-Season/Series 02, The others mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-28 09:02:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10083314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hamartias/pseuds/hamartias
Summary: Shiro. Shiro Shiro ShiroShiroShiroShiro. The name starts to lose consistency. It feels fake in his mouth. But Shiro is real. Shiro means strong shoulders, quiet support, fleeting smiles. Shiro had always been relentless in his solidity. Keith won’t allow him to disintegrate. He will keep him safe under his tongue and even when he grows too sharp, he will swallow through the blood and the hairs and the dust and he will remember.orKeith is not coping that well with Shiro's disappearance, but he won't allow himself to forget him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> idk. was supposed to do dissertation work so I wrote this instead. hope you enjoy it.
> 
> title from 'John My Beloved' by Sufjan Stevens

 

 

The first time Keith enters the Black Lion _After_ , he barely makes it in time to the toilet, his knees cracking on the cold floor, his already empty stomach even emptier.

 

*

  
Sleep comes so fast these days, it scares him. He doesn’t dream. He doesn’t flinch. He carries only emptiness with him; absence.

  
In the daytime, or what they call daytime in the vastness of space, he thinks about it. Is his body being cruel to himself or to Shiro? He can never make up his mind about it.

  
Today, he is thankful and his fingers shake with shame.

  
Today, he tries to beat the emptiness out of himself.

  
Today, he can’t remember the curve of Shiro’s neck.

  
His thoughts are scattered things, running, floating, soaring, but they always coalesce into a familiar shape day after day.

  
_I used to look for you in the stars, now I look for you in the dark, but you’re never there, never where you’re supposed to be._

 

*

  
For a while, the others leave him alone. He hears murmurs of ‘Grieving’, ‘In pain’, ‘In denial’, but the words don’t really mean anything to him. Perpetually. Continuously.

  
He is and he wishes he wasn’t.

  
Sometimes he gets…not angry, but something resembling it. He performs a parody of anger and he snaps and he cuts and he’s quite sick of himself.  
Keith doesn’t understand how the others do it. How they put up with it. How they can be so kind. But that’s it, isn’t it? His kindness never really belonged to him. So of course it went away when Shiro did.

  
‘Went away’ as if it was his choice, as if he packed his bags one day and threw a jaunty ‘See ya later’ over his shoulder and left. Keith wishes. He flings so many useless wishes in the spaces between the stars these days, he sometimes can’t recognize himself. But oh, he does.

  
He wishes Shiro had had a choice. If he could ever give him anything in this infinite universe, it would be the power of choice. And yeah, he’d probably be sad for a while, but it would be okay. As long as he knew…

  
Fuck the conditional. Fuck the wishes. They never did him any good. Keith always believed himself to be someone who, when presented with a lesson, he learned. That illusion is gone too now. Must be that masochistic streak Shiro always…

  
He’s so tired.

 

*

  
The missions come and go and Keith is a constant. Sure, the others are too, but sometimes he forgets they’re real. Like he absorbed everything in sight and all that remains belongs to him, is him. He doesn’t tell them that, doesn’t think they’d appreciate it very much.

  
He doesn’t try to go in again, but he often finds himself in front of the Black Lion. Like he’s keeping vigil and the Lion is a fucking shrine and he doesn’t let himself dwell much on that thought.

  
'It should be you.' His voice is scratchy and raw and it hurts in a very physical way.

  
'Nonsense. Shiro named you his heir. This is how it should be.' Keith doesn’t turn to look at her, but he thinks that if he did, her back would be steel and her eyes impossibly soft. His hands itch for a punch or maybe a hug. He wishes—no. He refuses to follow through this time.

  
He only notices the metallic tang in his mouth long after she leaves.

  
His gums are bleeding.

 

*

  
Shiro. Shiro Shiro ShiroShiroShiroShiro. The name starts to lose consistency. It feels fake in his mouth. But Shiro is real. Shiro means strong shoulders, quiet support, fleeting smiles. Shiro had always been relentless in his solidity. Keith won’t allow him to disintegrate. He will keep him safe under his tongue and even when he grows too sharp, he will swallow through the blood and the hairs and the dust and he will remember.

 

*

  
Keith is okay.

  
Keith sleeps like the dead.

  
Keith goes to the training room.

  
Keith gets the shit beaten out of him.

  
Keith practices flying in the Red Lion.

  
Keith doesn’t talk back.

  
Keith eats when Pidge tells him to.

  
Keith forgets to say thank you.

  
Keith doesn’t think of Shiro.

  
Keith punishes himself when he forgets to think about Shiro.

  
Keith doesn’t talk about it.

  
Keith sleeps like he’s dead.

  
Keith wakes up and remembers he isn’t.

  
Keith is okay.

 

*

   
At first, Shiro was a thing Keith couldn’t look at directly. Like his eyes needed time to adjust to his light.

  
And that was Shiro, burning brighter than anyone even when he wasn’t trying; especially when he wasn’t trying. He made you want to believe.  
Keith didn’t try very hard to resist. Shiro was his breathing room, his box of darkness. In Shiro, Keith allowed himself to be.

  
Once, in their Garrison days, giggling with exhaustion after a day of simulations and exams, they sneaked out into the desert. The two of them and a scrounged up bottle of something incredibly green.  
On their backs in the red sand, Shiro lost in thought, always looking up even then, Keith looking at Shiro even then.  
He doesn’t remember now if it was an accident or a premeditated act on his part, but Keith touched Shiro’s face and left bioluminescent trails behind him. He looked at the half-empty bottle and did it again, just to make sure.  
Wherever they touched skin, they glowed in blues and greens, like they had swallowed fireflies. Every time Shiro laughed, his phosphorescent teeth would light up the world.

  
Even when alive, Shiro made the prettiest star.

  
He wonders what would have happened if he was braver. At the academy, in his childhood, after they found each other again. But he’s never been brave when it comes to himself.

  
And these days, he’s so tired he feels dusty.

 

*

  
Keith has a theory.

  
He’s almost positive that on Earth, he swallowed the desert. He feels like a sock puppet, trailing grains of sand behind him, always in danger of bursting.  
He’s thirsty all the time. Skinny little Keith Kogane used to be hungry all the time, but now he's thirsty, always so thirsty. When you think about it, they're not that different.

  
There is a lacuna.

  
Keith Kogane with holes through his palms and something sharp under his tongue.

  
And Shiro nowhere to be seen.

 

*

  
The second time Keith enters the Black Lion _After_ , he straps into the pilot seat. He looks straight ahead. He doesn’t touch anything else. Allura suggested and…she means well.

  
‘Come back,’ he whispers to the dust on the console, to the leather under his back, to his white fists.

  
He leaves soon after.

 

*

  
‘I’m sorry.’

 

*

  
‘Somehow I always seem to fuck it up.’

 

*

  
‘You-You’d say to stop being so damn self-involved and that I can’t fix everything, but I can’t help it, okay? I’m selfish and I want you to come back more than I want to save the fucking universe and if that makes me a horrible person, then fine. Fine.’

 

*

  
The nth time Keith enters the Black Lion _After_ , he falls asleep.

  
And Shiro is there when he wakes up, pulling him to his feet, his hand warm, his breath on Keith’s cheek alive. Of course the first time he’d start dreaming again, it’d be so brutally real. But in the moment it takes him to see how the mauve light plays on Shiro’s face, he’s already decided. He will become a dream creature and burrow deep in this darkness that is very different from the darkness of space and he will stay here with Shiro, forever, in the wonderful curve of his neck.

  
‘You’re not a horrible person.’

  
‘What?’ the reply is instinctual. His flesh stands to attention no matter the Shiro.

  
‘Keith,’ Shiro’s hands hold him in place, gingerly, as if he’s afraid that _Keith_ is the one who will disappear, ‘I’m here and you’re not a horrible person.’

  
The pain of Shiro’s gaze is almost too much. But, masochistic streak and all that. He doesn’t stop looking at him. He regrets all those hours he didn’t speak, didn’t rehearse. His tongue is numb and his mouth is watering and he really fucking hopes he’s not going to puke right now.

  
‘I’m not dead. Just…stuck.’ Shiro’s laugh is awkward and croaky and lovely. Keith doesn’t care that he’s a dream. He hugs him, one hand on Shiro’s nape and wishes him into reality.

  
‘I’m going to get you out of here. I’m going to, you’ll see.’

  
Shiro slowly touches his forehead to Keith’s and in his eyes, there is only belief.

 

*

  
Keith is okay.


End file.
